Creative ideas, techniques, and patterns for paper quilling

Tag Archive 'free quilling pattern'

This quilled bookmark is a good project for children because it is quick and easy to do. And since the quilling is glued onto a wooden base, it becomes very durable, even for little ones who may not be as gentle with the paper coils as adults would be.

The materials used are very inexpensive, making it an ideal group project. The cross shown in this post would be a good choice for a Sunday school class or vacation Bible school. You could easily change the wooden base, however, to appeal to any group — perhaps a wooden heart with a quilled heart on top, or a round disk with a quilled flower for girls or a bug for boys.

For each bookmark, you will need: a small wooden shape, paint or scrapbook paper, a jump ring, assorted beads, cording, glue, and quilling paper of your choice.

To make the bookmark pendant, drill a small hole in the wooden shape for the jump ring. Paint the wooden piece or glue scrapbook paper scraps to the front and back. Insert the jump ring. Glue the quilling design of your choice to the top of the wooden shape.

To assemble the bookmark, thread one end of the cord through the beads, then through the pendant’s jump ring, and back through the beads. Secure the cord by wrapping it around back around itself and tying a knot. Tie a knot at the other end of the cord to finish the bookmark.

Several weeks ago I was approached by Laura Boetto of Papers and Pixels, a new On-Line Crafting Magazine. She had downloaded my free eBook, Quilling with Confidence, and was having a grand time learning how to quill. Laura was writing an introduction to quilling and asked if I would contribute a free quilling pattern for the November issue. How could I refuse?

I just received the November issue and am so impressed with the quality of the projects, a mixture of more traditional paper crafts and digital crafting/scrapping. Not only does it contain the quilling from Laura and yours truly, there are great ideas for Christmas cards and ornaments, and very informative tutorials on basic photo restoration — just in time for those needing a little help retouching scanned copies of precious family photos now faded with time.

But wait …. there’s more!

This magazine is totally free. Just pop over and download it. Such a deal.

Do come back and leave me a comment if you like my poinsettia and folded fan ornament. I’d love to hear from you!

To get your own copy of Quilling with Confidence, fill in your name and email address in the form found under the “Free Quilling eBook” section located at the top of the right-hand column of this blog.

In October of 2009, I posted an entry featuring Ms. Pumpkin Head, a small gourd pumpkin with quilled features just like the children’s toy, Mr. Potato Head.

Imagine my surprise and delight when Lynne Carr, a member of a quilling Yahoo! group I belong to, posted this photo of her wonderful pumpkin patch characters based on my design. Of course, I had to ask her if she would share them with you and she graciously agreed.

Lynne’s Quilling Background

Lynne discovered quilling in the fall of 2006 when she picked up a child’s quilling kit for a friend’s daughter in her local Dollar Tree. The friend decided she didn’t want it so it was set aside for six months. Lynne was going to throw it out, but decided to go online to see what quilling was. After she “picked [her] jaw up off the floor,” she decided to give it a try herself and it was instant love at first twirl.

Her first quilling piece was a simple purple flower. She tried the many designs she found online and soon discovered a 3D picture of several frogs sitting around a pond which won her heart. With her Dollar Tree strips now gone, Lynne started to cut her own 1/8″ strips from construction paper and tried making a small pond scene with only 1 frog and cattail. She says that the light weight construction paper quilled fine, but the paper wasn’t colorfast and her once colorful scene is now very pale as it has almost faded away.

She and her husband, Joe, are self-employed with very busy schedules. It seems as soon as she sits down to quill, she is called away (sound familiar?). Lynne loves that quilling is a versatile art you can start and stop quickly. She now purchases her quilling strips online to save time and obtain the colors she needs that don’t fade.

Lynne’s projects are a mixture of designs she has found online, her ever-growing collection of books, and her imagination. She was kind enough to mention that she enjoyed my Quilling with Confidence eBook* and actually quilled the “beautiful cross” (a free quilling pattern found in the eBook) and has it hanging on a wall over her desk.

Lynne’s Smiles

She has a collection of simple designs that she calls her “smiles” — things like frogs, butterflies, angels, ducks, flowers, etc., that are usually ½ to 1 inch in size. She keeps them with her and gives one to anyone she sees who she thinks needs a smile. She says that the reaction has been amazing. These little pieces of twirled paper have a way of making people of all ages smile who moments before were frustrated, upset, or sad. Lynne’s philosophy about her “smiles” is wonderful:

“I tell people who want to give me money for them, smiles are meant to be free. I gave them my smile and they gave me theirs in return, so we were even. And those smiles have given both my husband and me memories no money could ever buy.”

How awesome is that??? What a wonderful way to spread quilling love with others. Kudos, Lynne.

Lynne’s Pumpkin Patch Characters

This past summer Lynne found my blog post on Ms. Pumpkin Head and waited until the gourds were available in the stores to give it a try. She changed the lips to a simple half moon for a more comic look. To dress the pumpkins she went online to look for patterns for a child’s costume hat and found one of a pirate. She reduced the size of the pattern and glued it to a black band and lets it sit like a sweatband around the pumpkin.

For the witch’s hat, she drew two circles, 4-inches in diameter, on black construction paper, then cut one of the circles in half. She rolled the half circle into a cone and glued it together, just barely overlapping the sides. Next, she sat the cone in the center of the full circle and traced around it so she would know the diameter of the cone. She then made another circle in the center about the size of a quarter. She cut out the quarter size hole in the center, then cut from the hole to the middle circle (the one she drew when she traced around the cone) like she was fringing around it. She folded the fringe up and glued the fringe inside the cone shape. This gave her a witch’s hat that fit over the stem of the pumpkin and the stem helped keep it from falling off. She offered this great tip: When drawing on black construction paper use a pencil, it leaves a shinny mark that is easier to see.

The only problem she ran into was using Elmer’s glue to adhere the features to the pumpkin because they pop off if they come in contact with anything. She has given a dozen pumpkins away and explains to the recipient that if it happens, just pick up some Elmer’s and glue them back. No one seems to mind this little drawback. Everyone has loved the pumpkins, and are just amazed about how they look as they are shocked to find out it’s a real pumpkin.

*You can receive your own copy of my free eBook, Quilling with Confidence, by filling in the form located in the top right of this blog.

Top ‘o the morning to you! I missed MardiGras and the Chinese New Year, but my Scots-Irish heritage wouldn‘t let me skip St. Paddy’s Day without a quilled project or two.

In the United States, St. Patrick’s Day has become a celebration of everything Irish — and what could be more Irish than shamrocks and a leprechaun’s pot of gold at the end of the rainbow? I combined these traditional Irish symbols into a fun quilling design sure to bring the luck of the Emerald Isle to all those who quill it or are lucky enough to receive it.

I dressed the quilling up with green glitter on the shamrocks and filled the pot with flat-back crystals for the gold. A piece of variegated ribbon stapled in place finishes the tag.

You’ll find the free quilling pattern for this lucky design, along with instructions for creating the tag and the card I put it on, in the next newsletter. So, if you haven’t already subscribed to “The Art of Quilling News,” be sure to sign up today. (You’ll find the enrollment form in the upper right-hand corner.)

I leave you with this traditional Irish blessing:

For each petal on the shamrock
This brings a wish your way-
Good health, good luck, and happiness
For today and every day.

Like most crafters these days, I am saving bottles, wrappers, and other packaging pieces for use in future craft projects. I was looking through my stash for Valentine’s Day inspiration and found a wonderful glass bottle that used to contain a marinade. I decided to dress it up and fill it with M&M’s (my husband’s favorite candy) for a great Valentine’s gift.

I didn’t want the gift to look too frilly or girly, and was pleased when I found heart scrapbook paper in shades of beige, pink, and brown (American Craft’s Romance collection, In Love, #34582). I cut a band of the scrapbook paper to fit the bottle like a wrapper and grunged it up with brown blending chalk. I kept the quilling embellishment to a minimum, using simple light pink, red, and brown, quilled hearts, inspired by the scrapbook paper, glued down the center.

To make a quilled heart, roll two teardrop coils the same size. Glue the sides together, starting at the tip and ending just before the curve of the teardrop. If you are new to quilling, learn how to make a teardrop coil here.

Quilled Heart

Additional quilling instructions, hints, and information can be found in the Beginner’s Corner. The quilled hearts used on the scrapbook paper bottle wrapper were made using 8″ strips of 1/8″ paper for the teardrop coils.

The tag is a collage made from a dictionary page, a February calendar, and more quilled hearts.

Abbie at The Vintage Mothhas been kind enough to post free antique and vintage images for mixed media artists. I found her post containing several pages scanned from a vintage dictionary. The word “love” was on one of the pages, so I copied the graphic into a photo editing software program, cropped the section I wanted, enlarged it a bit to fit a standard small white tag (3-1/4″ x 1-5/8″) and printed it out on white paper. I glued it to the tag, trimmed the edges and punched out the tag hole. The graphic already had a nice aged patina, so I just grunged the edges with brown blending chalk. Next, I found a free calendar page for February courtesy of homemadecalendars.blogspot.com. Again I copied the graphic, resized it, and printed it on white paper. I cut it out and glued it on an angle to the tag, trimming the edges, and highlighted the calendar with light pink blending chalk. I glued a 3mm flat-backed red crystal on top of the “14″ of the calendar to mark the date. I then quilled three small hearts, one each light pink, red, and brown (teardrop coils made from 3″ strips of 1/8″ paper), and glued them randomly on the tag. Red fiber string was used to tie the tag onto the bottle.

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Quilling Tip: Use the same graphics and quilled hearts to create a fun ATC for your sweetheart, or use the tag as an embellishment for a Valentine’s Day card.

Quilling paper, 1/8″: white, yellow, gold metallic (solid gold on one side of the paper strip)

Gold leaf pen (optional)

Free Quilling Pattern — Heavenly Angel

(1) 20″ teardrop, white (body)

(1) 10″ loose coil, white (head)

(2) 10″ shaped teardrops, light yellow (wings)

(1) 2″ strip, metallic gold (halo)

Instructions for making the teardrop and loose coil can be found here.

Using the photo as a guide, glue the 10″ loose coil (head) to the pinched tip of the 20″ teardrop (body) to form the angel. Shape the wings by curving the teardrop around your index finger as you pinch it, or roll the tip of the completed teardrop around your quilling tool. If desired, run the gold pen across the top of the two 10″ shaped teardrop wings to gilt the edges before gluing them to the angel body.

To make the halo, fold the 2″ strip of metallic gold paper in half and glue the two sides together. You now have a 1″ strip with gold on both sides. Overlap the two ends and glue together to form an oval loop. Glue the halo flat (with the glued ends down) onto the background, slightly at an angle above the angel’s head.

Last year, I used this little angel on Christmas cards. I used the same blue scrapbook paper that reminds me of a winter’s night that I used on the snowflake cards in the previous post and added a homespun feel with the golden gingham held in place with mini brads.

This year, I designed a scroll ornament from the sheet music of a familiar Christmas carol, “Angels We have Heard on High.”

If you want to try making your own scroll ornament, there are many carols and hymns in the public domain.

Try a Google search for images or you can visit openhymnal.org to see if they have any you would like. There are also many scrapbook papers and stamps with music backgrounds that would work nicely.

Quilling Tip: The metallic coating on the paper used to make the halo causes the glue to take longer to set. I find it helpful to use a pair of tweezers to hold the ends of the halo strip together until the glue dries.

I really enjoy Halloween! It is the only holiday where you can go all out decorating your home and creating costumes for the little ones (and yourself), or you can do absolutely nothing … and it’s all OK.

I experimented with puffy markers in an earlier post and thought that they might work well with spiders. Since Halloween is right around the corner (where did the year go?), I thought I would give it a try. I used a dark gray quilling paper for the spider hoping that the black marker would show up a bit more than straight black on black, but the contrast isn’t there. However, the texture the marker created is good. It doesn’t show up very well in the photo, but it does look cool in person.

In the spooky spirit of Halloween, I’d like to share my free spider pattern with you.

Using the photo as a guide, glue the 5″ loose coil head to the center of the 1-1/2″ strip, then glue them both to the 16″ loose coil body. Make a small bend in one end of each of the remaining legs forming a tab and give each one a slight curve. To attach the legs, add a dab of glue to the tab of each leg and glue it to the body, spacing them evenly on each side. Use the (4) 3/4″ strips (two on each side) for the middle legs, and the 1″ strips (one on each side) for the back legs. If you would like to add a flocked effect to the spider, paint it with the black puffy marker. When dry, turn on the heat gun and watch the paint puff.

What do you do with a scary quilled spider? Turn it into a Spooktacular Halloween card, of course.

*Halloween greeting stamp of choice (I bought a small set with several greetings at JoAnn for $1)

*Small piece of black netting

*Small piece of black floss

*Self-adhesive foam mount (Pop Dots)

*Dry adhesive (tape runner)

Cut a 4″ x 5.5″ piece of orange card stock and ink the edges with the brown ink; attach to front of card. Stamp greeting in upper left corner of card. Using photo as a guide, glue strips of green and purple quilling paper in a cris-cross pattern to front of card; trim edges. Tie the net to the tag with a simple overhand knot. Thread one end of the floss through the tag hole and glue to the back. Glue the other end to the center of the tag about three-fourths down. Glue the spider (head down) to the tag at the base of the floss string to make it look like the spider is hanging by the thread. Attach the tag to the card with the foam adhesive mount.

Share your Halloween card with a family member or friend. And, don’t forget to sign your work!

I hope you decide to give this project a try. If so, I’d love to hear from you. Send me a comment and let me know how it turned out.

July 4th is right around the corner and I wanted to create a special quilling project to celebrate America’s birthday. I was looking around the Internet for patriotic images when I happened upon an American flag made with safety pins and pony beads. Now, this is not a new craft; children have been making safety pin jewelry for years. But this time when I saw the photo something clicked and I began to wonder if I could substitute quilled beads for the plastic pony beads. I pulled out a safety pin from my sewing basket and made a few tight coils as test beads. I slipped them on the safety pin and realized that the idea would work. After a trip to my local craft store for the safety pins, I was ready to make my own version of this childhood crafting classic.

Quill (9) blue 3″ tight coils, (26) red 3″ tight coils, and (21) white 3″ tight coils. If you think that your pin will be handled a lot, spray the quills with several coats of sealer to protect them. Next, take a 1-1/4″ long coiless pin slip on three blue tight coils, then four more tight coils in this order: white, red, white, red. When it is fully loaded, shut the pin and crimp the clasp with your pliers so it cannot come open. Repeat for two more pins. Load the five remaining coiless pins with seven tight coils in this order: red, white, red, white, red, white, red. Crimp the clasps to secure the beads.

Using the photo as a guide, assemble your American Flag pin by placing the eight 1-1/4″ pins on the shaft of the 2″ pin, making sure they are in the right order. With the front of the pin facing you, wrap one end of the wire around left-hand side of the shaft of the 2″ pin several times then run it through the pin loop to secure it. Wrap the wire several times around the handle of your quilling tool to form little coils. Secure the remaining end of the wire to the clasp end of the 2″ safety pin. In honor of our brave troops, tie the yellow ribbon onto the wire loop and clip the ends.

Wear your American Flag pin on July 4th or any day you want to show your national pride!

For my international readers

I encourage you to take this idea and adapt it to your own country’s flag.

*Coiless safety pins have the same basic shape as regular safety pins, but instead of having a circle loop of wire at the end, the wire simply bends. I used The Jewelry Shoppe brand coiless pins that I found at Hobby Lobby. If you can’t find coiless pins, you can certainly use regular safety pins, but you will have to purchase them a bit longer because you will lose a bit of available space due to the coil. Also, if you use regular safety pins to hold your tight coil beads, you will need to pull apart the double looped end of the two inch long safety pin wide enough to slide the other safety pin loops through to the other side of the pin.

Quilling Tip: A Google image search will bring up a multitude of wonderful pictures when you need creative inspiration. Don’t limit your search to quilling, but look at all types of images from clip art to photographs. You never know what you might find … or where it might lead you in your creative journey.

I have exciting news!! My new e-book, “Quilling with Confidence”, has just been released, and is being offered free to visitors on my blog.

I’ve long wanted to share the techniques of quilling, and have put together a digital book filled with great information that I wish I had known when I first started quilling.

Along with a bit about the background history of this fascinating art form, I’ll introduce you to the tools and supplies you’ll need to get started. Then its time to learn the basics of quilling –coils and scrolls — and how to assemble your completed piece of quillwork. I’ve even included three new projects to try, from beginner to more advanced. These are complete projects and include more than just the pattern for the quilling itself. You’ll find a photo of the completed piece, a materials list, and a line drawing of the quilling you can print off and use with your quilling work board. This e-book is chock full of helpful hints and tips, and even has a section that addresses common quilling problems.

This is a downloadable copy, and I want to send you one. Just sign up for my newsletter so you can keep up to date with more patterns and additional ideas and tips, and I’ll get you your copy right away!

Your information will not be shared, and the e-book is free to everyone, so I hope you’ll take a moment to subscribe and get your copy now!

For me, summer means the beach. I love to hear the sound of the ocean waves crashing upon the shore as I lounge contentedly under the shade of a big umbrella. But, since I can’t go to the beach, I thought I would do the next best thing and craft something tropical instead. Today’s quilling pattern is a fun one because it introduces a new quilling coil, technique, and tool.

The trunk of the palm tree is made from a coil called a “rectangle” because it is, well, a rectangle. To make this quill, roll a loose coil and pinch it into a marquise. Next, move the marquise slightly between your thumbs and index fingers and pinch again, forming two more points near the original ones. You should now have a rectangle quill that has two long sides and two short sides.

We’ll also be playing with a new tool — a paper crimper. I bought mine at the North American Quilling Guild Conference this past May. The one I have is made by Paplin, but there are several good ones on the market. It isn’t a “must have” quilling tool, but it is so much fun. To use the crimper, simply feed your paper strip through the gears and it comes out crimped. If you don’t have a paper crimper you can still make the palm tree. Just make the palm fronds with straight quilling paper instead.

Finally, I want to show you a bit about wheatears. This isn’t a coil or a scroll because you don’t curl the paper, you loop it instead. To make a wheatear, create a small loop. Now, while holding the original loop, make a larger loop around it. Keep looping the paper until your wheatear is as long as desired, then glue the paper down at the starting point and either tear or cut off the excess paper. Wheatears can be left rounded, or shaped like a coil. For the palm frond, you’ll pinch the ends like a marquise and bend the ends in opposite directions to give the frond a little curve.

Using the photo as a guide, glue the rectangle coils on top of each other to form the palm tree trunk. Give the top rectangle coil a little pinch to form the top of the trunk. Glue the base of each wheatear to the tip of the palm tree trunk, mixing up the sizes. Glue the tip of the gold pressed heart to the tip of the gold teardrop to create a fun little fish swimming in the surf.

The palm tree and fish make perfect additions to a beach-themed tag — a great embellishment for a vacation scrapbook page.

Additional Materials for Quilled Beach Tag

(1) Tag, 4-1/2″ x 2-1/8″, blue (DMD Industries)

Card stock scraps, turquoise, white, beige, gold

Blending chalk, brown (optional)

Jute twine, 6″

Using the photo as a guide, tear a strip of tan card stock, chalk the edge a darker brown (optional), and glue it to the tag for the sand. Tear a strip of white card stock and glue it over the bottom edge of the tan strip for the crashing waves. Tear a strip of turquoise and glue it along the bottom of the tag for the deep water, leaving a strip of the original blue tag showing for the shallow water. Tear a curved piece of gold card stock and glue it in the corner for the sun. Trim off any card stock edges even with the tag. Glue the palm tree and goldfish in place. Tie the jute on with a simple overhand knot and fringe the edges. Be sure to sign your work!

I hope you decide to join me at the beach and give this project a try. If so, I’d love to hear from you. Send me a comment and let me know how it turned out.

Quilling Tip: Don’t pinch the crimped paper too hard or you will flatten out the paper folds and lessen the effect.